Shen Ruoxi had no patience for his nonsense, and simply picked up her pen to make quick revisions.

“Shen Ruoxi, are you homesick?”

Xie Yan’s question made Shen Ruoxi’s pen stop mid-stroke. She looked up at the man sitting there with his air of casual unconcern.

“How did you hear that?”

“Just listening randomly,” Xie Yan said. “Wildly guessing. You said I don’t understand music — so I was just listening wildly.”

Shen Ruoxi had not expected that his “wild listening” would strike the truth. This song was indeed a melody born from missing home.

“Do you think it sounds nice?”

“Quite nice.” Xie Yan said, “The kind that makes people resonate easily. I’d wager this song is going to be a great hit.”

“You said yourself you don’t understand music — should I trust what you say?”

Xie Yan replied with complete composure, “It’s precisely those who don’t understand music who can hear the most original and unfiltered quality — who can feel the emotion the songwriter has poured into it.”

Seeing him say it with such conviction, Shen Ruoxi made no rebuttal. Besides, the piece had been accidentally completed because of him, and that made her genuinely happy.

“Shen Ruoxi, are you done yet? Can’t you look at me now?” Xie Yan made as if to scoop her into his arms.

Shen Ruoxi quickly stepped to one side. “If you’re bored, you don’t need to waste your time here. Your flock of admirers have plenty of ways to keep you entertained.”

Before she had finished speaking, someone had pulled her into his arms, and the next instant her earlobe was bitten. He was not angry at all — on the contrary, he seemed quite amused. “Shen Ruoxi, are you jealous?”

“I was merely offering a sincere suggestion.” Shen Ruoxi struggled briefly, then gave up. “Go to them. It’s better than sitting here with such a dull person as me.”

“Who says you’re dull? You’re the most interesting person here.” Xie Yan wound his fingers through a strand of her hair. “None of them compare to you.”

“Should I thank you for the compliment?”

“Keep talking to me like that and I won’t be gentle with you.”

Shen Ruoxi heard the edge creeping into his tone and stopped baiting him — after all, if she pushed too far, she would be the one to suffer.

When she fell quiet, he was satisfied, and pulled her closer against him. Her soft warmth and the faint fragrance she carried made his thoughts wander. He could not help but let his hand inch toward her waist.

“Xie Yan.” Shen Ruoxi startled and quickly pressed down on his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you think?”

Shen Ruoxi thought: how much energy could this man possibly have? From last night until now, he showed no sign of stopping.

“I’m exhausted.” Shen Ruoxi had no choice but to lower her voice and plead. “Not right now.”

“Really don’t want to?”

“Yes.”

Xie Yan raised an eyebrow. “Fine. Then you can’t look at those things anymore either. We’re going to sleep.”

After the two of them lay down, Xie Yan extended one arm and drew her into the curve of it. After Shen Ruoxi had been tense for a while without sensing any further movements from him, her heart slowly settled.

“Let’s talk a while,” Xie Yan said. His voice in the darkness was rich and warm, pleasant to hear. “Did you ever have a cat when you were little?”

“No — but there was a stray cat behind the courtyard that liked me very much. It would often come to play with me.” Shen Ruoxi seemed to recall something that made her smile. “I even gave it a name — Little Black, because every bit of its fur was black. Little Black was very well-behaved: never fought with other cats. Whenever it came to find me, it would curl up at my feet and rub and rub against them.”

“What happened later?”

“Not long after, I left that place with my family and never saw Little Black again. Though there’s a cat in the alleyway now that looks just like Little Black — I call it Little Black the Second.”

Xie Yan laughed. “That’s a rather careless name to give.”

“Did you ever have a cat?”

“No, but I like cats.” Xie Yan said, “They love ease and cleanliness. Sometimes I think I’d like to live like a cat.”

“Not everyone is fortunate enough to have the life of a cat.”

“You’re right — being human is sometimes truly worse than being a cat.”

Shen Ruoxi heard this and could not help but glance up at him — seeing only the sharp line of his jaw, nothing of his expression.

Could someone like Xie Yan — a man who had everything he could command and everyone who feared or admired him — truly envy a cat?

In his world, he held absolute power. He was feared and revered by many, hated and envied by others.

He was young, but his heart had long since been worn to something ancient.

Yet others saw Xie Yan as unreachable, while what she saw was sometimes like an overgrown child who had never quite grown up.

She could not tell which was the real him — which Xie Yan was the most true.

“Shen Ruoxi, do you know how to ski?”

“A little — but not very well.”

“That’s all right. I can teach you.”

In Shun Cheng, horse riding and skiing were the exclusive pastimes of the upper class — the sort of place ordinary people could never afford to enter.

“I’ve only ever skied on small hillsides.” Shen Ruoxi said it without any trace of embarrassment. “When it snowed heavily in winter, the hillside would be covered in a thick blanket of snow, and we’d make sleds out of wooden planks and slide down.”

“What a coincidence — I was a regular visitor to hillsides myself. Which hill were you from? Give me your name and faction.”

Shen Ruoxi burst out laughing, and answered in the same mock-solemn fashion: “I am of the Horsetail Slope.”

“And I am of the Donkey Hoof Slope.” Xie Yan reached under the blanket and found her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“The honor is mine.”

“Shen Ruoxi, you’re smiling.” Xie Yan said it as if he had discovered something new, his delight plain to hear. “Look at that — you’re smiling. If you’re smiling, that means you’re no longer angry with me.”

Only then did Shen Ruoxi notice her own upturned lips, a smile reaching all the way into her eyes — whether from the memory she had conjured or from his playfulness, she could not say.

“I’m sorry.” Xie Yan gazed at her face, his voice dropping low. “I apologize to you. I was wrong.”

“Does an apology change anything now?” Shen Ruoxi said. “Time doesn’t flow backwards.”

Xie Yan’s face showed regret, and then a certain steadiness settled over it. “I’ll take responsibility.”

“How will you take responsibility? By offering me the title of Mrs. Xie? Or with gold and jewels?”

“What do you want?”

Xie Yan’s question actually left Shen Ruoxi momentarily at a loss. She had only said it offhandedly — she had not been expecting any answer.

Because whatever he might offer, she wanted none of it.

“I’m going to sleep.” Shen Ruoxi closed her eyes and said no more.

Xie Yan watched her face for a long while, then pressed a single kiss to her brow. Nothing more.

The night fell swiftly quiet. The breathing of both of them gradually steadied. No one knew whose dream the other entered, or whose heart had become a dwelling for the other.

That night, both of them seemed to have dreamed of something — but neither said a word about it.

~

Xie Yan kept his promise. The following day, he let Shen Ruoxi go to work.

He himself lingered in his small black-market shop, drinking to pass the time. The young man working in the shop spoke to him several times; each time, Xie Yan sat with eyes closed and gave no response, completely sunk into his own world.

When the door opened, he did not bother to open his eyes. He simply said in a low voice: “Get out.”

He did not want to see anyone right now.

A sound cut through the air — swift and precise, arriving before him in an instant. When Xie Yan opened his eyes, the empty glass in his hand had shattered into several pieces.

He sat up sharply and threw the fragments aside.

“Shi Ting, could you at least speak like a normal person instead of striking first and asking questions later?”

Shi Ting sat down across from him, helped himself to a glass, and said, “Return the favor.”

He had dared to tell him to get out — of course Shi Ting was going to give him something to think about.

Xie Yan could only feel regret. If he had known it was him, he would never have told him to get out — not for the sake of the expensive glass alone.

“How many glasses of mine have you broken now? Have you ever counted how much you owe me?”

Shi Ting tossed a document onto the table in front of him. “This is the autopsy report my wife prepared. Do you know what it costs to have my wife personally conduct an autopsy?”

“Yan Qing examined it herself?” Xie Yan’s expression became serious. “That means it was more complicated than expected.”

“The body had been burned nearly to charcoal. To find anything useful from it, she had to do it herself.”

Xie Yan picked up the document and began reading.

“The body was burned beyond recognition, but blood doesn’t burn away completely. Yan Qing detected a hallucinogenic agent in his bloodwork.”

“So Qiao Dahu’s death truly wasn’t an accident.”

Shi Ting said, “The victim suffered a fracture to the skull — he had been struck violently by a metal object before death. This appears to have been the primary cause of death. After he died, the perpetrator doused the body in alcohol and set it alight. This was a premeditated murder.”

“What was the hallucinogenic agent?”

“Yan Qing was only able to identify the components and determine it was a hallucinogen. But this substance doesn’t exist anywhere in Shun Cheng. The reason I took so long to bring you the results is that I’ve been having people trace its origin. Only yesterday did word come back.”

Xie Yan held the document, his expression grave as he looked toward Shi Ting.

“This drug first appeared in Xi Nan. It was used by the Xi Nan government against spies and traitors. A small dose induces severe hallucinations — with the right verbal guidance, it can coax out secrets the user would never willingly reveal, and it also allows for control over the victim. In large doses, death is certain within twenty-four hours.”

Shi Ting poured himself half a glass of red wine and took a small sip. “You said that Qiao Dahu went berserk in the dance hall and began harming himself — that he claimed to see the women he had destroyed. All of that was a result of this drug working on him. Someone was guiding what he hallucinated and then pushing him toward self-destruction. However, this drug cannot simply be ingested — it requires tobacco as the delivery medium.”

Xie Yan’s grip on the document tightened unconsciously; the pages crinkled and warped in his hand.

He picked up Shi Ting’s thought: “The person who administered the drug, not wanting the agent to be detected in Qiao Dahu’s body, decided to finish the job entirely — killed Qiao Dahu and burned the body to charcoal. That way, unless someone as troublesome as me came along, no one would ever look into how Qiao Dahu actually died. They all assumed Qiao Dahu was driven mad by the ghosts of those women, drove himself to self-destruction, and then set himself on fire.”